May 9th, 2011 Family night and dinnertime play activities- April Posted by Melitsa in download, Education, Homemade, language, Media, play activities, Podcast

What’s family dinner like in your home? Probably pretty busy. Anytime for play activities?

Family meal times can be a really chaotic time of day with the bewitching hour close by/ clubs and activities/ and the general hustle and bustle of preparing a meal with children underfoot. By the time we make it to the table we’re all a little frazzled. Once we start eating we try a conversation and get mixed results.

 

Dinner time is a great time to connect and feel that family bond. We’ve had a lot of success with Dinner games and now were extending the fun.

Extending the fun

During the meal we try the conversation starters to get to know our children. Then move onto family night activities.

At the end of each month I’ll be sharing a download full of activities to try over the month for dinner conversation and together family activities.

Photo credit

Download April here

Contents

Since we’re at dinner I thought I would continue the theme………………….

Appetizer: Conversation starters during dinner

4-6 questions to promote conversation with your under 5s plus space to add your own.

First course: Recommended family game or activity

Games we recommend that encourage team work, participation, conversation and appeals to various ages.

Second course: Book recommendation

These books work really well read aloud or working together as a family.

Salad course: Podcast recommendation

Podcasts for kids or parents to enjoy

Dessert: Music

Start their musical appreciation with some carefully thought out musical journeys.

Cheese course: find some excellent play activities to do for the month.

How?

Combine them in one night and have a playful family’dinnight’ or try different parts over the month.

Photo credit

Happy family ‘dinnight’!

Download April here

April 26th, 2011 DIY kids play stove Posted by Melitsa in Homemade, language, Memes, Outdoor play, play activities, pretend play, Sites to visit, Thought of the week

Meet our latest kitchen addition.

The one benefit of having lots of boxes from a move is the endless fun you can have with them.

I’ve been on the lookout for a kitchen set for a long time but everything I’ve seen didn’t fit for one reason or another. We’ve never been shy about our creations even if they don’t look the greatest I’ve never been shy to share them. Some will laugh and point the finger and I hope you are inspired to do better then. The best thing about these types of project is how we all get involved. It’s not about how perfect it looks but how functional.

Two brothers

This is how the minds of two brothers think for their little brother one Easter holiday….with a little help from mum.

Small empty box wrapped in white paper

Kids:We don’t want to see that writing and maybe we can paint it

Me: Thank goodness as I kept meaning to get a better covering for it.

Kids: We need bits on the top……[looking around the room] How would I draw a circle?

Me: Introduces a cereal bowl.

Kids: off to find paper. Problem 1- no paper in the size for 4 burners so improvise with white ( we’ll colour it) and red card – probably left over from St George’s day craft.

squabble over who will do what…….

Brother runs off with paper ….

Discussion about distracting the LO and working together. MO decides to play or distract his brother while the BG can quickly finish the colouring and cutting.

Peace …… negotiation complete

me: How do you turn it on then?

Kids: run off. MO comes back with lid from a bottle. Puts it on the box. Lots of different bottle tops tried. Some from things in use………….

A little while later, the DIY stove is fully functional with Chef MO cooking up a feast and Chef LO lining up the ingredients.

There were more steps inbetween these.  Lots of excitement, diversions, breaks for snacks etc But over the course of one morning it was completed.

This picture was taken at bedtime as activity is too fast and furious during sessions. The beauty of this stove is………

portable

homely

precious

full of memories

lovingly made

Designed and mostly made by brothers for their brother

played with by all.

Don’t be put off with making your own play activities or encouraging your children to do so.

If you’re looking for a comprehensive list of DIY projects check out childhood 101.

Sorry ….. I have to go………..been invited around for some tea and a baked bean tin?

This post is part of the meme We Play: Pop on over and view the other players

April 19th, 2011 Tissue Box prepositions Posted by Melitsa in Education, language, Memes, play activities

Cars. Cars. Cars.

The LO loves vehicles.

Using what he loves in a fun a playful way took a new turn this week with the    Tissue Box Challenge

We raided our junk box ( aka recycling bag) and using some other familiar (borrowed) items to make a new truck for him using a tissue box.

This is what he saw when he came down from his nap, thanks to his older brothers who put the finishing touches like a window and changed the little man from a robber to who we have there now.

He pushed it up and down which gave us the idea of prepositions.

As he naturally pushed it under the coffee table we all yelled “UNDER the table” and he got the hang of it and would put it in place for us to say ” ON the sofa”.

Can you guess which ones?

Hint: If you place the cursor over the photo you’ll see

We did a few more over things like flowers but he was happier to see how well the flowers splayed out and how well the truck stuck to on the flowers than over…………

The tissue box was transformed again in hours and parts used elsewhere. Now they had the bug for making it went on for most of the day.

April 11th, 2011 Homemade bubbles Posted by Melitsa in language, play activities, Thought of the week

Homemade bubble play is a quick and easy idea.

I’m all about experimenting so mix your proportions but I used lots of water and a little squirt of washing up liquid. The extra ingredient we added was glycerin. This helps to keep the bubbles shape and stops them from pop so quickly, in theory. If you don’t have Glycerin, which you can get a  chemist. We use it exclusively for bubble making and it lives on our kitchen windowsill, then a pinch of sugar has worked for us in the past. I don’t understand the science behind it but it really does work.

Autumn is our favourite season for bubbles outside because of the wind but Spring on good days you can get a good wind as well.

We decided to play with cookie cutters to make shapes and the video shows us using a pipe cleaner or chenille stick- we made all by ourselves.

We had lots of language fun.

Here’s one of moments of play last week………What bubble play fun do you have?

Bubble fun

March 31st, 2011 Family night and dinnertime play activities- March Posted by Melitsa in download, Education, language, Media, play activities, Sites to visit, Thought of the week

What’s family dinner like in your home? Probably pretty busy. Anytime for play activities?

Family meal times can be a really chaotic time of day with the bewitching hour close by/ clubs and activities/ and the general hustle and bustle of preparing a meal with children underfoot. By the time we make it to the table we’re all a little frazzled. Once we start eating we try a conversation and get mixed results.

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